Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Brent Harding <bharding@doorpi.net>]

I really should add the option, I hate rebooting to windows to shut off. If
I type poweroff, I get full shutdown though.
At 01:34 AM 12/5/01 -0700, you wrote:
>On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Tommy Moore wrote:
>
>> Nope if you make the new partition on the second drive and copy
>> data from the first all you do is boot in with boot disk when
>> you changed hdb to hda and run lilo.  Have done this multiple
>> times and it's always worked.
>
>I agree with this outline, with a few details added.
>
>> you may need to acc [add?] lba32 to the top of lilo.conf so
>> that it'll work with all drives but once you've done that you
>> should be set to to go.
>
>This only applies to recent systems.  The lilo documentation
>says: "Use of LBA32 is recommended on all post-1998 systems" (the
>standard was adopted in 1998).  These systems must be able to
>"use the Enhanced BIOS packet calls".  Many old BIOSes can only
>boot from the first 1024 cylinders.  One solution is to make the
>first partition within that space, for a small boot partition,
>containing the /boot directory.  10 or 20 megs should be more
>than you would ever need.  Just enough for the kernels (old and
>new), and the bootloader map files, etc.  If you find that your
>BIOS can boot with the new extended standards and a recent
>version of lilo (see the lilo documentation), this is not
>necessary.  Another solution is to boot with LOADLIN instead of
>LILO.
>
>> I'd rather spend 5 minutes doing this than to spend 20 doing a reinstall.
>
>Indeed.  Once the system is working, one can do a normal upgrade.
> 
>> You can't do this on a running system though you have to do
>> this from boot and root disks.
>
>Well, you can do it on an new, unmounted drive, on a running
>system.
>
>> Just fdisk the new drive the way you like and format new partition and 
>
>And the "format" command is really a mkfs (make filesystem)
>command for your choice of filesystem types (probably mkfs.ext2).
>But you probably knew that.
>
>> then mount the drives on different mount points and then do a
>
>> cp -ap .  /new_drive
>
>> from with in the / directory of old drive and everything should
>> work. 
>
>I would add the -x option to that (same as --one-file-system, eg.
>stay on this file system), or you may have problems with the new
>mount point being recursively part of the copy -- kind of a mess.
>With the -x option, you will have to copy one partition at a
>time, for the old ones.  So the new cp command might be (after
>doing a cd to the root of the partition you are copying:
>
>cp -axp *  /new_partition_root_dir/
>
>And don't forget to edit the new /etc/fstab to reflect the new
>layout.
>
>> Remember to reboot between the format and fdisk process though.
>
>>From the fdisk man page:
>
>   A sync() and a BLKRRPART ioctl() (reread partition table from
>   disk) are performed before exiting when the partition table
>   has been updated.   Long  ago it  used  to  be necessary to
>   reboot after the use of fdisk.  I do not think this is the
>   case anymore - indeed, rebooting too quickly might cause loss
>   of not-yet-written  data.  Note  that both the kernel and the
>   disk hardware may buffer data.
>
>But then, the cfdisk man page still says:
>
> W      Write  partition  table  to disk (must enter an upper case W).  Since
>        this might destroy data on the disk, you must either confirm or  deny
>        the write by entering `yes' or `no'.  If you enter `yes', cfdisk will
>        write the partition table to disk and the tell the kernel to  re-read
>        the  partition  table from the disk.  The re-reading of the partition
>        table works is most cases, but I have seen it fail.  Don't panic.  It
>        will  be  correct after you reboot the system.  In all cases, I still
>        recommend rebooting the system--just to be safe.
>
>So watch for warnings when you finally write the new table.
>
>And here's a tip from the sfdisk man page:
>
>   For  best results, you should always use an OS-specific
>   partition table program.  For example, you should make DOS
>   partitions with the DOS  FDISK  program and Linux partitions
>   with the Linux sfdisk program.
>
>So you would leave some empty space in the early cylinder part of
>your drive for MS-DOS, for later.  Early, because that OS may
>balk at being booted from the latter part of a big disk.
>
>Note that some users here may prefer sfdisk, because of it's
>total command line orientation, and scriptable behavior.
>
>Now, I know you don't want that old drive to stop when you
>reboot, so you would shutdown without the -p (power off) option.
>On my system (RedHat), this would mean editing the last line of
>the /etc/rc.d/init.d/halt script, to remove that option.  If I
>remember right, you run debian, so you would have to look around
>a bit, maybe, for an equivalent.  This might not be necessary if
>you have set your bios, as I have, to not power off on shutdown,
>or if your bios or motherboard do not behave that way.
>
>LCR
>
>-- 
>L. C. Robinson
>reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid
>
>People buy MicroShaft for compatibility, but get incompatibility and
>instability instead.  This is award winning "innovation".  Find
>out how MS holds your data hostage with "The *Lens*"; see
>"CyberSnare" at http://www.netaction.org/msoft/cybersnare.html
>
>
>
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